Long-term and affordable residential rentals are being eradicated from SLO County, especially from the coastal zone. We must preserve those we still have. Oceano has a few left on Pier Avenue. However, their tenants are being disproportionately impacted by State Parks’ visitors. Tenants must suffer beach visitors in need of parking unlawfully using their private […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Many people believe that there should be a right to privacy, but there’s a cost
Roe v. Wade is dead. Now what? The impact in California and the other blue states is negligible, and abortion will continue to be available in those states. But more potentially impactful is the court’s finding that the “right to privacy” that the Roe court “discovered” in the Constitution does not actually exist. This has […]
Posted inOpinion
The big ask
Do elected officials have the right to be upset about their salaries, or should they live with it because they knew what they were getting into when they signed up to run for the job? If you’re outgoing Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley, apparently you throw a fit because you make a few […]
Posted inOpinion
Polio is back. Where are we going with this?
The alert has gone out that polio has been detected in a New York water treatment plant. So, we add that to monkeypox and the ongoing COVID-19 variant. Where are we going with this? First off, it’s just the ongoing fearmongering that the federal government is engaged in to exert control over the population. The […]
Posted inOpinion
Lompoc’s school district should wait to try again for its $125 million bond
The Lompoc Unified School District (LUSD) is asking voters to approve a bond measure four years after they twice rejected similar efforts. This bond would be used to fund facility improvements. Recent events over at the LUSD should cause the board of trustees to withdraw a school bond from consideration on this ballot. Why? Well, […]
Posted inOpinion
Gunning for you
Jim “Don’t Point Those Finger Guns At Me” Mosby is sick of seeing Lompoc rise from the ashes of its once derelict City Council to actually increase funding for things like public safety. In the year and a half since the council’s been freed from his toxic grasp, the city has made real progress—and he’s […]
Posted inOpinion
Where will the water come from?
It is not fair to the taxpayers of Santa Maria for our City Council and Planning Commission to give the developer of the recently approved housing on the site of the old Fallas property in Town Center West $1.25 million in incentives, when he will make millions on this project without taking money out of […]
Posted inOpinion
I also grew up with guns
Ken Haggard’s opinion piece from Aug. 18 titled “Growing up with guns,” like so many others, misses the point, although he does brush up against it. He says, “It never crossed our minds to actually point these weapons at anyone, much less load and shoot at a person.” It is not the change in guns, […]
Posted inOpinion
Call the doctor
I’m not sure why the fine folks who appealed the Santa Barbara County planning director’s decision to OK a land-use permit for Dr. Greenthumb’s to open a cannabis dispensary in Orcutt felt that lyrics from a song released in 1998 would persuade planning commissioners to deny said permit, but they did. The full lyrics of […]
Posted inOpinion
A response to John Donegan’s Aug. 4 gun article
As a teenager in south Texas in the early 1950s, I grew up among guns. They were just a natural part of things. Every household seemed to have some. Our kitchen pantry, for example, housed a .30-06 deer rifle because my old man had once hunted deer. We also had a semiautomatic .22 caliber pistol […]
Posted inOpinion
We must elect democracy defenders
During the Jan. 6 hearings, we’ve heard from former members of the Trump administration and Republican state officials about how Trump and his allies worked together to try and overthrow our democracy because the 2020 presidential election didn’t go their way. Now, they’re working to make sure all of our elections go their way in […]
Posted inOpinion
Donegan’s commentary on guns is exactly how I feel
Right on, Mr. Donegan (“Conservatives and guns,” Aug. 4)! When people realize that it’s the idiots behind the guns that cause the problems and the existing laws that are not properly enforced, then understanding the problems will not be changed. Plus, without the care and treatment of the mentally impaired, the problems will not be […]
